Flooring Over Slab

I will remodeling my family room, which currently has carpet. The adjacent room also has carpet but the rest of the house is hardwood. The adjacent room with carpet has hardwood underneath. Only the family room does not have hardwood either underneath carpet or currently visible.

My question is, what flooring can I use on slab that will best match the existing hardwood which is 2-1/4 in wide red oak? Is there 2-1/4 in unfinished red oak engineered wood that I can stain to match the existing hardwood?

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Flooring Over Slab

Quote:

Originally Posted by sullijos

I will remodeling my family room, which currently has carpet. The adjacent room also has carpet but the rest of the house is hardwood. The adjacent room with carpet has hardwood underneath. Only the family room does not have hardwood either underneath carpet or currently visible.

My question is, what flooring can I use on slab that will best match the existing hardwood which is 2-1/4 in wide red oak? Is there 2-1/4 in unfinished red oak engineered wood that I can stain to match the existing hardwood?

Flooring Over Slab

2 1/4" red oak will be easy to match. It is the most common flooring their is. Is your existing floors solid or engineered? Is their a layer of plywood on the concrete? Was the existing floor finished onsite or prefinished? Regardless the situation, you should be able to get it to match. You could surely get a match by refinishing the existing floors while doing the finishing on the new floors. Please let me know what your existing floors are and I will try to help.

Flooring Over Slab

Thank you all for the input so far!

The existing hardwood floors in the other rooms are solid hardwood and were finished onsite (I imagine that this is the case as I think they are the original floors when the house was built in 1965). I should mention that the room in question, is the only one in the house on slab. The rest of the house has a basement underneath.

My friend had a similar situation and the flooring company used a vapor barrier, and cris-crossed sheets of plywood as a subfloor. Then they installed solid hardwood. My hesitation is that most sources I have referenced have said to simply never use solid hardwood on slab.

Flooring Over Slab

You can use solid hardwood on a slab, with use of plywood first. You must also take other precautions. I would say the safest/most affordable method of doing this would be to get a 2 1/4" engineered unfinished red oak, and either gluing it down or floating it over the concrete and the staining and finishing to match the existing hardwoods. A couple of good engineered manufacturers that make unfinished engineered are; real wood floors, and shamrock. Hope this helps.